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'Rush' crew is in the fast lane

'Rush' brings Formula One racing rivalry to life

Bullet-fast cars, an epic rivalry and an era of sexual freedom - that's what fuels director Ron Howard's 'Rush' as it opens in select cities Friday (and nationwide Sept. 27). USA TODAY's Andrea Mandell unveils the men (and the actors who portray them) in the driver's seat of this true-to-life 1970s Formula One racing tale.

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E. Di Baia, AP

The Men of 'Rush'

James Hunt

Profession: F1 driver; died at age 45 in 1993

What drove him: Hunt was a ladies' man, a daredevil and a quick wit, and the Brit played as hard as he raced. "His lifestyle overshadowed his skill level and the fact that he was an athlete," says Chris Hemsworth, who portrays him. Like his Rush and real-life rival Niki Lauda, Hunt clawed his way into the big leagues of F1. Eventually, the two became friends. "He was quick, and he was really a competitor," says Lauda - the kind of rival "I don't wish (upon) anybody, because he was really good."

Jaap Buitendijk, Universal Pictures

The Men of 'Rush'

Chris Hemsworth

Profession: Actor, 30

What drives him: The Australian who plays Hunt broke out in 2009's Star Trek but is better known today as the wry, hammer-yielding, bicep-bulging Thor. The elder brother to actor Liam, he's ascended the Hollywood ladder with box-office hits such as The Cabin in the Woods and Snow White and the Huntsman. "If he's trying to do something, he wants to do it properly," says Rush director Howard. "He applies that self-discipline." Hemsworth has more potential blockbusters in the pipeline, including Thor: The Dark World and The Avengers: Age of Ultron.

E. Di Baia, AP

The Men of 'Rush'

Niki Lauda

Profession: Retired F1 driver, 64

What drives him: The Austrian racing legend, who officially retired in 1985 with three world championships under his belt, knows that his curt reputation precedes him. But he has given Rush's rehashed rivalry tale his blessing. "I think the movie shows exactly how we were fighting each other in a proper way, and not in a nasty way - let's put it this way," says Lauda, who is now an author and commentator on F1 races. "Seeing the whole thing again, it has some emotions for me. Especially that James is not there anymore. This is the sad part."

PRNewsFoto/Safilo Group

The Men of 'Rush'

Daniel Bruhl

Profession: Actor, 35

What drives him: Best known to American audiences for his portrayal of a Nazi in Inglourious Basterds, the Spanish-born German actor has been on the rise for years in films such as the lauded Good Bye Lenin! from 2003. This fall, he also has a starring role opposite Benedict Cumberbatch as Julian Assange's right-hand man in the WikiLeaks film The Fifth Estate (Oct. 18). Thanks to the film's strong showing at the recent Toronto International Film Festival, his phone is ringing with offers. "I can't believe this is happening," Bruhl says. The actor also owns a tapas restaurant in Berlin. "That's my future, maybe. If this doesn't work out."

TORONTO — As though a flag has been dropped, patrons race into a deserted bar five minutes before the stars of Rush arrive. Word travels fast.

The din hushes slightly when director Ron Howard approaches in a baseball cap, settles into the corner table and squeezes lemon into a cup of hot water. And the room practically stops at the arrival of the towering, gray-suited Chris Hemsworth, who settles into a chair next to his more inconspicuous co-star, Daniel Brühl.

Hemsworth and Brühl portray, respectively, legendary Formula One racing rivals James Hunt and Niki Lauda in Rush, an epic retelling of the 1976 racing season that almost cost both drivers their lives. The film hits select theaters Friday and goes wide Sept. 27.

Turn the dial back, and this setting changes. If Hunt (who died in 1993 at 45) were here, he'd probably be scouting the stiletto-heeled patrons, shrugging off his jacket and subbing out the bottled water for beer. Famously no-frills Lauda (who, at the moment, is on a plane headed here as a surprise for the Toronto Film Festival audience) likely would be glancing at his watch, wondering how many minutes, exactly, were necessary to convey his point.

"Both guys were 'take it or leave it, this is who I am,' " Hemsworth says. "James' point of view was 'Live life to the fullest, and if you're not having fun, then what's the point?' I don't know if these guys would have gotten away with — James especially — the things they did back then."

But this story, scripted by Peter Morgan (The Last King of Scotland, Frost/Nixon), was a hard sell in Hollywood, where checkbooks stalled over the fact that F1 racing has failed to captivate the American imagination since Mario Andretti exited the sport more than 30 years ago. "I didn't know anything about it," Howard admits.

In 1976, blond-haired, blue-eyed Hunt was a tabloid fixture, making headlines as a womanizing hothead who ran on instinct during the deadliest era F1 had seen. On most of the Grand Prix tracks, Hunt's McLaren typically trailed the Austrian's Ferrari. Lauda represented everything the Brit was not: coldly disciplined, tactical and precise.

That all changed on a rainy day in Nürburgring, Germany, when Lauda's car slammed into an embankment and exploded. Lauda survived but was critically burned and required extensive surgeries, including skin grafting on his scalp and eyelids. Against doctors' orders, the bandaged driver startlingly resurfaced six weeks later, refusing to concede to Hunt in his pursuit of the '76 World Championship.

Exciting fare, no? Major studios shrugged and passed on the sexy international tale. So Howard raised the $53 million budget independently ($38 million, as Howard points out, after tax breaks). It's hardly a micro-budget by Hollywood standards, but for an action movie relying heavily on stunt drivers, water-deluged tracks and heart-palpitating precision racing, it's a relative bargain.

CLOSE

Director Ron Howard and stars Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Bruhl share the real life drama that inspired their new film 'Rush,' which chronicles the 1970s Formula One rivalry between James Hunt and Niki Lauda.

Which is how Howard, the Oscar-winning director of A Beautiful Mind and Apollo 13,found himself at the helm of his first independent movie since the launch of his career. (Technically, Universal is the film's distributor.)

The upside? Howard got to call the shots on a movie that could have been a Hollywood caricature of good guys and bad guys, one-liners and bad accents, "I thought, if I'm really going to do this, the intention has to be to try to be as authentic and pure to the story as possible," he says. "For example, I wanted a German actor. I wanted them to speak German. I wanted an international movie." Brühl auditioned and was shocked to win the part.

Enter Thor. Howard concedes he initially had doubts that Hemsworth had a handle on Hunt's demons. From the set of The Avengers, Hemsworth had his wife, actress Elsa Pataky, shoot an audition tape.

"She's a good director," Howard muses as Hemsworth chuckles. "I was excited about it. Because I'd heard great things about him, I liked meeting him. I thought, 'This guy can act.' "

Hemsworth, who shed 30 pounds just to fit in Hunt's F1 car, wanted to prove something to himself with Rush. "In a strange way, it's a lot of similarities to doing Thor and Avengers," he says.

AN UNLIKELY HIT?

So when did they first get on the track, exactly? Hemsworth and Brühl sneak a look at Howard.

"Well...," Hemsworth starts.

"There was a point where I was talking to both of these guys about some sort of driving school," Howard says. "And then I was told, 'We can't insure them this early to do that.' And I sort of said that to both: 'Well, we can't do (driving school) right now, but we'll do it before we start.' And you both had the same answer: 'If I don't ask and don't have permission but just go to driver's school, can I just do that?' "

They laugh. "They both separately said the same thing!" Howard says.

" 'What you do on your own time…' '' Hemsworth says, mimicking the director.

Now, early reviews are doing the steering. Thanks to a successful debut in Toronto, Rush is looking like an unconventional hit. "The buzz surrounding this film is red-hot right now," says Paul Dergarabedian, Hollywood.com's chief box-office analyst.

A big review is already in. "I have to say when (Brühl) came onto the screen the first time, I thought it was myself. It was unbelievable," Lauda says by phone. Hemsworth, too, got it right, Lauda says. "I'm afraid it's true. It was in the old days — we were very egocentric, selfish. Because the danger and risk was there all the time. We were different people."

At the table, Hemsworth and Brühl trade Lauda-isms. Lauda invited Brühl to fly in and meet him in Vienna, with the caveat to bring only hand luggage, should they dislike each other. (Instead, a friendship bloomed.) The first time Hemsworth met Lauda? "I said, 'How's it going?' 'Boring!' " Hemsworth mimics in Lauda's accent.

It was that bluntness that kept the world engaged in '76. "The most interesting thing that I hooked into very early on was the B-roll interviews and the outtakes of interviews of before and after (the races)," Hemsworth says. " 'So, James, what did you think it took to win the race today?' And he's like, 'Big (cojones)!' They go, 'James, you can't say that.' Take 2. And he just didn't give a (damn)."

History can be hard to watch, particularly when it's your own. Lauda says he grew uncomfortable watching a scene in which he leaves the hospital to race again, his scalded face wrapped in gauze.

"The biggest difficulty for me was when I came out of the hospital and I approached people in the press conference. I was upset that the people had shock looking at me," he says. "I could see their reaction. I said, 'Listen, when you speak to me, please look in my eyes and don't always look in my burned face.' I was upset, and I did not understand, because it certainly affected me and hurt me. But when I saw the movie and I saw (Brühl's) face, I was shocked, too. So I have to say, I was a little bit too hard on the people, because it really looked terrible."

The memory of re-creating those burns invites Brühl to send a mock-glare toward Hemsworth. "The second half of the movie, when I had the prosthetic makeup, they would pick me up at 3 o'clock in the morning, which is extremely painful," Brühl says. "And I was sitting there for six and seven hours, and sometimes, I would look at the call sheet, and it said, 'Chris Hemsworth: Pick up, 10 o'clock. First scene: Chris Hemsworth is kissing a nurse. Second scene: Chris Hemsworth is making love on a plane.' And he'd step in the makeup trailer and say (Brühl adopts an impeccable Australian accent), 'Hey buddy, how are you?' "

Hemsworth laughs, but as the father to 1-year-old India with Pataky, he's no longer quite so well-rested. Not to mention the star's schedule is packed with films, including Thor: The Dark World (Nov. 8), the much-anticipated Avengers: Age of Ultron and Michael Mann's Cyber.

"Thankfully, my wife has been able to come with me with our daughter, and I still get to see them. It would be tough if we were on different sides of the world," he says. Little India is changing constantly, he says. "Oh, my God. Every couple of days. And you think, 'Oh, wow, I'm as impressed as I can be.' Nope, the next day they're doing something new that you fall in love with."

Meanwhile, Brühl's phone has started ringing with offers. "This film means a new step for me," says the actor, who continues his hot streak with a role as Julian Assange's second-in-command in The Fifth Estate (Oct. 18).

Howard is doubling down with Hemsworth on In the Heart of the Sea, which is shooting now and is "based on the events that inspired Herman Melville to write Moby Dick," the director says.

Brühl, momentarily left out, pulls a Lauda and pretends to snooze while they describe the project.